Despite all agreeing that the most important thing by far is having a healthy baby, many mums (and dads too) will admit to having had a preference for (or thought they had a preference for) what sex they wanted their baby or babies to be.
I have previously written about how I was convinced that I would only have girls, having grown up in a very girl-heavy family (and then having a girl first), only to be taken by complete surprise when my 10 lbs 1 oz baby boy, Luca, arrived. However, my conclusion was that NOT being able to decide these things for yourself, instead trusting that the universe will bestow upon you the very baby you are meant to have, is by far the best thing.
But 36-year-old Rose Costa from Texas disagrees, claiming that "you feel incomplete as a mother until you have a girl."
Which can explain why Costa and her husband Vincent have just spent over $100,000 on seven rounds of IVF – despite having no fertility issues whatsoever.
The Texas native, who is already mum to two teenage sons, spoke to Yahoo Parenting about how she does not regret dishing out the money, as she is currently pregnant with a little girl the happy parents have already named Olivia.
“I love my boys very much and wouldn’t change them for the world, but having a girl is really important to me,” the mom to sons Gabriel, 15, and Igor, 13, told the New York Post. “You feel incomplete as a mother until you have a girl.” To ensure her completion, Costa decided to opt for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD): a component of IVF that allows patients to determine the gender of their embryos, after which they can opt to only transfer embryos of the desired sex into the mother’s uterus.
“I know it’s something a bit controversial, but I also know that a lot of people, women especially, who have this kind of desire would like to know more about this; how it works and what they could do,” she explains.
According to Shari Brasner, who is an obstetrician at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, the PGD procedure (which determines if an embryo has any genetic conditions, as well as reveals the gender) is in itself nothing new. But the choosing not to place embryos back into the mother because they would result in a baby of undesirable sex is going a step further — a step that has been banned by some European countries and decried by ethical opponents as a means of creating “designer” babies.
Despite the "designer baby" slur, the practice is growing in popularity stateside, with some fertility clinics having seen a 250 percent increase in demand for sex-selection fertility services over the past five years.
Costa herself admits to having family members who were less keen on her active pursuit of a girl, but that they did "not interfere." The 36-year-old reveals her and her husband used contraception throughout their three-year-plus saga to conceive Olivia – so as not to risk becoming pregnant with a boy.
But now, as an almost-mum-of-three, it has all been worth it, she says. Even to her two teenage sons. “They’re older now and understand it better,” she says. “They know it’s important for me to have a girl, so they give me all their support, too.” Now, she admits, all there is left to do is decorate the nursery.
What do YOU think about this practice, dear readers? Would you ever, if money was no option, decide what sex your babies would be? Or are some things better left out of our hands? Join the conversation with us on Twitter at @Herfamilydotie
